Pack 22: Oeko-Institut’s Recommendations
Almost exactly two years after the deadline to submit an EU RoHS exemption renewal application to the European Commission in order to extend those exemptions past the July 21, 2021 expiration date, the Oeko-Institut (Institute for Applied Ecology) has issued its report for Pack 22.
As renewal applications must be submitted 18 months in advance of an exemption’s expiration, this comes just 12 months before yet another application deadline for exemptions expiring July 21, 2024 (including those addressed in this report).
The Oeko-Institut’s 235-page report recommends to the European Commission whether and how they should renew many of the most widely used (and necessary) exemptions: 6(a), 6(a)-I, 6(b), 6(b)-I, 6(b)-II, 6(c), 7(a), 7(c)-I and 7 (c)-II. The commission now has to review and decide whether to adopt the recommendations in the report, then propose delegated directives and ultimately put them into force.
Once again, not only is the relative timeframe evidence of significant issues with 2011/65/EU Article 5, but the actual recommendations often try to narrow the existing scope of the exemptions to a stunning degree.
Further bifurcation of already-bifurcated exemptions into narrower and narrower scopes will require extraordinary technical, administrative and time- and resource-consuming efforts by manufacturers for what can only be described as secondary or tertiary reductions in the amount of lead placed on the EU market annually.
See, for example, the proposal for exemption 7(a). The consultants propose to effectively split it into two exemptions, one of which is set to expire on July 21, 2024, and the other two years later for seven more very narrowly described scopes of use. This is despite admitting that substitutes for lead (as noted in exemption 7(a) applications) are still understood to be mostly unavailable. If it were adopted, exemption 7(a) alone would add another page to the length of the RoHS Directive.
The industry consortium, the RoHS Umbrella Project, does not agree with the proposed wording as the consultants admit they are wordsmithing, which is dangerous and could lead to confusion and increasing RoHS violations. The consultants also note that (based on the examples in the report and from my experience) there’s already a relatively low level of confusion in the market about the scope of 7(a).
Part of the blame could be placed on the lack of an appropriately detailed FAQ – which the previous commission punted on amending, leaving us with the ultimately inadequate 2012 FAQ – but increasing the complexity and detailed requirements in exemptions like this will require extensive and clearly-written (and clearly-translated) guidance.
The European Commission historically has not been quick to adopt recommendations for exemption actions based on the consultants’ reports. For instance, as noted on the Commission’s RoHS website, the renewal application for exemption 1(a)-(e) (mercury in fluorescent lamps) requested on January 16, 2015 was proposed for adoption in December 2021. While that is a bit of an outlier, the fact is that the timeframes for exemption validity specified in Article 5 are far too short to allow time for industry research, consultant review and recommendations followed by Commission action.
Were the Commission to simply follow through on the Pack 22 report as-is, I expect it would not be taken well by the industry.
I believe it would be wiser to simply extend the entirety of exemption 7(a) to, for example, July 21, 2030 and give the industry adequate breathing room to continue its efforts to minimize the use of lead in high-melting-point solder, as well as the other exemptions.
This is where the RoHS Recast, the eventual RoHS 3, comes into play. The Commission should shelve this report until stakeholder consultations and internal deliberation result in a more sensible and coherent approach to exemption renewal, definition and guidance – and a RoHS 3 reflecting that thinking. That, of course, leads to an extended period of uncertainty, but I would take that over bad decisions.
Speaking of which, the Commission just opened a month-long “call for evidence” to collect feedback on options for addressing the future of the RoHS Directive.
REACH Revision Stakeholder Consultation
REACH has now been in place for over 15 years. As the most proactive chemical regulation in the world, it has had an enormous impact on manufacturing industries in that time:
- We have learned a lot more about the substances that comprise our products.
- We have cleaned up our products more quickly than would otherwise have been the case.
- We have learned that we do not know an awful lot about our supply chains, about chemistry and about toxicology as they apply to our products across the entirety of their lifecycle.
- We have learned about the power that the very determined government of a significant market can have on a wide variety of aspects regarding how products are defined, designed, managed and sold.
- We have re-learned that other markets will follow a leader when that leader has the resources to make an impact.
Now comes the next stage of REACH. According to a recent press announcement:
The European Commission has launched a public consultation on the revision of the REACH. The revision will aim to align EU chemical rules with the Commission’s ambitions for safe and sustainable chemicals, high levels of protection for health and the environment and preservation of the internal market. The planned REACH revision is one of the actions announced in the Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability.
The consultation is in the form of a survey. At the start of that survey, the Commission notes that a range of possible measures are being considered:
- Revision of the registration requirements, including increased information requirements to enable effective identification of all carcinogenic substances and substances with critical hazard properties (including effects on the nervous and the immune systems); registration of certain polymers of concern and information on the overall environmental footprint of chemicals
- Introduction of a Mixtures Assessment Factor(s) (MAF)
- Simplifying communication in the supply chains
- Revision of the provisions for dossier and substance evaluation
- Reforming the authorization process
- Reforming the restriction process
- Revision of provisions for control and enforcement
This is the start of an important and impactful process. Regardless of where you’re located within the supply chain (or outside of it), a wide variety of stakeholder input is required.
The deadline for comments is April 15, 2022.
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